Sue Silver

Aurora, Nevada's Silent City on the Hill Sue Silver

The ghost town of Aurora, Nevada holds a mystique among ghost town visitors. Born on the coattails of the great Comstock Lode discovery at Virginia City and Gold Hill, Aurora quickly boomed with mining men who held it up to great expectation. Within a short four years, the luster and hopes of the new city began to fade amidst legal difficulties and shallow mineral ledges. Although the town continued to exist and mining activities occasionally rallied on into the early twentieth century, Aurora?s greatest moment and romance had long since passed. Of the reported thousands of people who once inhabited Aurora, many died and never moved on. Leaving them to their rest, their surviving families suffered the downturns of the town, and eventually moved on and away, with only a few families staying in hope that Aurora would boom again. Sadly, only Aurora's cemetery ? its Silent City on the Hill ? remains today to best evidence its long-ago existence. Whether the cemetery's occupants died at the hand of violence or by disease or natural causes; were young or old; were military veterans, miners, mothers or fathers, Aurora, Nevada's Silent City on the Hill examines the histories of those buried in its hallowed ground. These pioneers of Nevada?s most romanticized ghost town now make the Aurora cemetery their last home.